Friday PhotoEssay

Happy 4th of July Weekend! Don’t forget about the Local Food Challenge as you are cooking this weekend! We have some great prizes lined up, so be sure to enter.

As rough as this spring and summer have been on plants, we are still starting to see some veggies ready to pick. This is the a Cayenne pepper. We planted a mix, so it appears that at least this plant will have yellow peppers.

This is one of the recipes from Lunch in the Garden today – beet smoothies! This recipe called for cooked or canned beets, milk, mango, and lime juice. For a touch of flair, I garnished it with a sprig of mint.

This is the other Lunch in the Garden entry – Roasted Beet Salad with a Citrus-Herb Vinaigrette.

We’re starting to get some baby cukes on the cucumber vines. If they successfully pollinate, the go from the cute babies to full grown cucumbers in a matter of days, especially in this heat.

We saw the first flower on the Chinese Long Beans this week. If you were around this blog last summer, you know that this means the onslaught of Chinese Long Beans is coming fast!

The regular green bean type pole beans are also busy flowering, but I haven’t really seen any beans developing yet. Maybe it is too hot.

On the other hand, the butternut squash doesn’t seem to be having any problems whatsoever. The melons are in good shape too.

Well, the recipe just came out of my head at the moment. Here’s what I recall:
Roasted Beets, peeled and cubed
Spinach (or other greens)
Feta cheese
Walnuts
1 orange, peeled and cut into pieces (or mandarin oranges)

For the dressing: Juice of one orange, Extra Virgin Olive Oil (about a 1-1 ratio), salt and pepper, and minced herbs of your choice. (I used chives, tarragon, and thyme.)